While not posted here on the Fediverse, a user on the :deadbird: site has gotten in contact with a user to leak the problems the staff are working with while producing the anime.

(Note: Some spelling corrections, source from Patstar_1999, OCR in text form)

Alleged Allegations:

Before we start with the leaks, its important to look back to the months before the Anime began its airing. The Anime was after long rumors and people begging for it revealed at January 23. We got a Key Visual and the staff. Most People were skeptical. Thanks to the Animation Studios. I was one of the few who said let them cook. Why? Because of Lapis Relights. Sadly we didn’t reached this quality standard. The Anime made its first public appearance at the AnimeJapan 23 the biggest Anime event of the year.

They promised us a PV, we got a 20second teaser. Still we got a date (January 24) and because of the date still being that far away, we were hyped. Also, most of us were looking at the WataOshi Anime. Months over months and we didn’t get any information.

We are now at the beginning of august 23. Rumours regarding an upcoming PV appearing, PV did not happen. October 23 next rumors are coming,rumors about a sick staff member appeared. I wanted to do a tweet, but I refused thanks to missing evidence.

November 23, PV, Delay and director change happened. Rumours were
conformed being real. People are hyped and I began being skeptical thanks to the director change, too many projects by Yokoani and CH and the fact of not colored artworks. The Anime began its airing.

So now its time for the leaks. First I want to make a thing clear. Its important that we all should voice our respect towards all the Animators and staff members working on the Anime. What they currently during is godswork. You don’t want to know what these people are feeling when they see viral tweets mocking the Animation. They are getting the backlash despite being the people who are suffering the most. Thank You for reading this important part. Time for the leaks.

Remember the concert scene at EP 7? The scene that was mocked in that viral post. People were mocking the disappearing microphones. Well for that scene, were 2-4 people involved. All working on a different schedule, all working on massive crunch, and no chance to communicate.

The microphone directly happened thanks to missing time. It did not happen because of incompetence, it was because of missing time. Small thing, all EPs are finished just 48-72 hours before their airing, another signal of massive problems.

I think a clear sign of these problems is strangely enough to be the fact of the late BD/DVD release. (After VOL 1) Another small thing that is probably known is the fact that Yokohama and Cloudhearts are not the ones making the schedules and budget management.

So now its time for the heavier stuff. Did you know what scummy business Yokohama and Cloudhearts are during with the Sasakoi? They use outsourcing studios, giving them nothing to work with and in the end the outsourcing studios are the ones with the backlash.

This is the reason why so many credit mistakes happened. Why every EP have a different production level, because every EP is handled by a different studio. This is the reason why so many individual mistakes happen. Not because of incompetence because of an awful environment.

Just a small hint, every person who is involved in this Anime is speaking of a miracle that they actually manage to get something on screen.
What currently happens is a miracle.
But why?
Time for the worst bomb of all.

Yokohamas entire team left the project because of these awful conditions. The was doomed from the beginning. The CEO of Yokohama is actually trying since weeks to not cause any delays. What happened is that since EP3, every EP has a different team, people are getting not credited. People are mistreated, people are working overtime, and they have to sleep in their office.
They cant leave their office.
These are the things I am willing to make public.
There are still a few bombs, but I want to ensure the safety of my source.
They deserve the best.

To end this thread, its important to know that these people are working their asses off, just to get mocked by some assholes who dont know what they are actually during. I for my hand, saw how talented these people actually are and what they are during.
They are outstanding.

Thank You all for reading, sharing, and using this thread for your education. I will be there answering a few questions if you want.
Thank You for your time.
And I wish the best for my source.

Original snapshot of the thread on the Deadbird site is here.

My Rebuttal

Sure, the animation for Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau could be better, but I feel that something is a bit off since things can be lost in translation and that the OP does not have a full understanding of how the industry obviously works. Most productions for the most part will have works outsourced to get the overall production done. It’s kind of hard to believe the account if the OP says that the “they use outsourcing studios, giving them nothing to work with and in the end the outsourcing studios are the ones with the backlash.” Maybe the OP should probably watch Shirobako and see a basic idea of how the anime studio works.

Not to mention, the fact the staff changed along with the delay after the director and studios change due to the former anime director resigning due to health issues, may have impacted the production.

Here are some other rebuttals in my replies, which I agree with, which of course goes against OP’s account.

@chikorita157 I’m not very knowledgeable about anime production aside from what I’ve gleaned from watching shows like Shirobako, but I’m skeptical about this leak because the part about the concert scene only having 2-4 people working on it contradicts the credits in the episode itself.

I suppose it’s possible that they credited a bunch of people who did little or no work on this scene, but why? (The thread even claims there are problems with people not being credited, rather than the opposite.)

Also the part about “different schedules, no chance to communicate” seems weird. I’ve never heard of anime production, during the actual animation process, being anything other a back-and-forth thing – the animators aren’t getting minute-by-minute feedback on each frame from the directors or anything. AFAIK, cuts usually get turned in when they’re done, then reviewed as time permits, then returned and revised.

I don’t doubt there’s brutal crunch on Sasakoi and episodes are barely being finished in time, but anyone could guess that just by watching it. I do doubt that the finer details in this “leak” come from a trustworthy source.

(Side note, not all these thoughts are original, I owe some of them like the credits discrepancy to a friend of mine on deadbird. But as said friend has had their account privated for a long time, I think they would prefer I didn’t spread their name around.)

— Letheka (@lethekazhorai@sakurajima.moe) 2024-05-31T17:13:16.518Z

@chikorita157 @lethekazhorai Yeah, OP has no idea what they're talking about. They may or may not know a staff member, but if they do, then something got lost in translation.

Letheka is right: the credits clearly contradict what OP is saying and staff not all being in the same office is the norm. Traditionally there'll be an animation meeting or "sakuuchi" where the episode director (enshutsu) and production assistant meet with all the key animators (although ideally sakkan, douga kensa, etc. should be there too) and explain each of the assigned cuts, but these days you might also just have the enshutsu record videos for each animator and asking them to reach out individually with questions. OP is right that the lack of communication is a bad thing, but wrong that this is abnormal.

To be fair to OP, if they're not straight-up bullshitting, it's possible that like…animators are receiving storyboard and settei packets with no further elaboration. The contradiction with the credits and the way it's mentioned alongside the essentially meaningless "different schedule" thing makes me suspect bullshit, but there *is* a plausible interpretation.

>another small thing that is probably known is the fact that Yokohama and Cloudhearts are not the ones making the schedules and budget management

…yes, yes that is how anime works unless you are KyoAni. You can get pedantic here because anime studios actually *do* always set their own budgets because the production committee pays the primary contractor a fee to make the cartoon and then the primary contractor spends however much of their own money they need to get the dang thing to air. That just makes OP's claim weirder though because I don't know how a studio can lose control of how it spends its own money unless there's something very weird I don't know about how these particular studios are structured. The best I can come up with for a charitable reading is that OP might've heard that the contractor can't just ask for more time and money and misunderstood.

>They use outsourcing studios, giving them nothing to work with and in the end the outsourcing studios are the ones with the backlash.

Again, this has been how TV anime has worked since Astro Boy. This is so vague that you can once again imagine OP heard something and just didn't understand the context, but there's nothing "scummy" on the face of it. Maybe the primary contractor really is weirdly uncommunicative with its subcontractors. Maybe OP is making shit up. Who knows? According to my METI anime subcontracting guide, Japanese law considers failing to deliver information such as required to complete the job described in the contract to be an abrogation of the terms, so it better not be the former lmao

>Yokohamas entire team left the project because of these awful conditions. […] What happened is that since EP3, every EP has a different team, people are getting not credited.

That doesn't seem to be true though? What would that even mean anyway?

— Nate A.M. (@kbnet@sakurajima.moe) 2024-05-31T21:55:02.603Z

@chikorita157 “Did you know what scummy business Yokohama and Cloudhearts are during with the Sasakoi? They use outsourcing studios”????? anime fans need to stop thinking that outsourcing is not normal. Gosh even beloved KyoAni started as an outsourcing studio! I’m not saying that there’s nothing wrong with the production of that show, but a rant by someone that doesn’t seem to understand the production process doesn’t help

— mofumofu (@mofumofu@mastodon.social) 2024-05-31T17:04:11.045Z

>

In short, take all leaks with a grain of salt, they may or may not be true, unless it comes from the actual source, which would be in Japanese and would need translations.